Three immigrants to America win the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics

Three immigrants to America have won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics, illustrating continued contributions of immigrants to the United States. The three immigrants – one from Turkey and two from Great Britain – are affiliated with American universities. Immigrants have been awarded 38%, or 45 of 117, of the Nobel Prizes won by Americans in chemistry, medicine and physics since 2000, according to an analysis by the National Foundation for American Policy (updated through the 2024 awards). Immigrants have also been awarded 31% (24 of 78) of the Nobel Prizes won by Americans in economics, including 28% since 2000.

The price in economics 2024

“This year’s laureates in the economic sciences – Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson – have demonstrated the importance of social institutions for a country’s prosperity,” according to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences’ press release issued for the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics. “Societies with a bad rule of law and institutions that exploit the population do not generate growth or change for the better. The awardees’ research helps us understand why.” The economics prize originated in 1969 and is formally named the Swedish Riksbank’s prize in economic sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel.

Daron Acemoglu was born in Istanbul, Turkey. He received a BA from the University of York, followed by an MSc. and Ph.D. from the London School of Economics. He came to America in 1993 and became an economics professor at MIT. He co-wrote with James Robinson Why Nations Fail and that Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. In 2023, he wrote the book together with Simon Johnson Power and Progress: Our Millennial Struggle for Technology and Prosperity.

Simon Johnson was born in Great Britain. He received a BA from the University of Oxford and an MA from the University of Manchester before coming to America as an international student and earning a Ph.D. Beyond Power and ProgressJohnson published (with Jonathan Gruber) Jump-Starting America: How Breakthrough Science Can Revive Economic Growth and the American Dreamand other books. He remained engaged in world affairs, serving as chief economist at the International Monetary Fund (2007–08). In 2024, he published a working paper for the Brookings Institution on “Strengthening Enforcement of the Russian Oil Cap” with Catherine Wolfram.

James Robinson was born in the United Kingdom and earned a BSc. from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He received an MA from the University of Warwick before coming to the US as an international student and earning a PhD at Yale University. He became a professor at the University of Chicago in 2015 and since 2016 has been Reverend Dr. Richard L. Pearson Professor of Global Conflict Studies at the school. Before the University of Chicago, Robinson was a professor at Harvard, UC-Berkeley and other institutions. He co-authored another book with Daron Acemoglu titled The Narrow Corridor: States, Society and the Fate of Liberty and has received numerous awards.

In a joint paper published in 2004 by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson developed the “empirical and theoretical case” that economic institutions play a fundamental role in differences in economic development around the world: “Economic institutions that encourage economic growth occurs when political institutions allocate power to groups with interests in the broad enforcement of property rights, when they create effective constraints on incumbents, and when there are relatively few rents for incumbents to capture.”

Many former immigrant Nobel laureates

This year is not the first time that several recipients of the Nobel Prize in Economics have been immigrants. Two of the three American winners of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics were immigrants – MIT professors Abhijit Banerjee, born in India, and Esther Duflo, born in France. In 2021, David Card, an immigrant from Canada, and Guido W. Imbens, born in the Netherlands, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics, as well as American-born Professor Joshua Angrist.

In 2021, three of the four American winners of Nobel Prizes in medicine, chemistry and physics were immigrants to America. In 2016, all six American recipients of the Nobel Prize in economics and science were immigrants.

In 2023, four of the six American recipients of Nobel Prizes in medicine, chemistry and physics came to America as immigrants. In 2023, Hungarian-born Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine “for their discoveries regarding nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19.”

In its recent report, the National Academy of Sciences cited the high proportion of immigrants among Nobel laureates as one of several arguments for liberalizing US immigration laws and regulations. Analysts say the Nobel Prize announcements have become an annual reminder of the contributions of immigrants to America.